On the death of Maria Theresa, Joseph, her son, succeeded to the throne of Austria. Maria Theresa was a very devout and superstitious princess, a circumstance which enabled the sacerdotal fraternity to gain and betray her confidence. But in making her an object of their craft they made her son their enemy. Their duplicity having excited in the mind of Joseph a strong aversion to the intermeddling and intriguing profession, he no sooner ascended the throne than he manifested a disposition to adopt a policy more in accordance with the enlightenment of the age than was agreeable to the pope and the clergy. The world with pleasure, but the church with consternation, beheld him enlarging the liberty of the press, tolerating the Protestants, treating the Jews with moderation, annulling ecclesiastical sinecures, and abolishing such monasteries and nunneries as were not useful as schools or hospitals. Uneasy at these useful reforms, yet not daring to mutter his Vatican thunder, and finding his machinery unable to stop their progress, Pope Pius IV. sought a personal interview with the liberal minded emperor, to dissuade him from the further prosecution of his beneficent intentions. But notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of the vicar of Christ, the emperor still continued to reduce the number of the monasteries, and to effect reforms in the churches, and in the various departments of the government. This wise and sagacious policy, which relieved the people of the oppression of spiritual despotism, and renewed the vigor of national energy, was not appreciated by the masses through the ignorance and superstition of the age. The emperor not only had to contend with opposition from those for whose moral advancement he was laboring, but also with the disguised hostility of the pope, and the subtle operation of his treacherous machinery. But still, amid wars, seditions and rebellions, he pursued his magnanimous policy; and if he did not effect all the reforms in the church, and in his government, that he had contemplated, it was more through the intrigues of the pope than through any want of disposition, skill and energy on his part.